Do you recall the Oscar winning “Erin Brockovich”, starring an outstanding Julia Roberts? Most probably yes. But less people would supposedly remember the name of the big corporation Erin fights and defeats: Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E).

The movie is indeed based on a true story: Erin Brockovic, a formerly unemployed single mother of three children working in a law firm, found out evidence that PG&E had been dumping (over a few years) 370 million gallons of cancer-causing chemicals into a series of ponds located in Hinkley, CA. The civil class-action managed by Erin brought to the largest settlement of its kind in the history of the United States: PG&E was requested to compensate the plaintiffs with $333 million! Further details about the trial are available here.

What I want to point out here is that perhaps something has changed, or at least history has been a good teacher… since today the same PG&E is one of the champions in the US race towards clean energy production.

Based on an agreement signed one year ago with two subsidiaries of OptiSolar and SunPower, PG&E will soon manage one of the world’s largest photovoltaic farm, for a total of 800 Mw. The farm will be located in San Luis Obispo County, about 100 miles north of Santa Barbara, CA.

Those 800 Mw are just a nominal figure, which approximately indicates the solar panels “peak power” (the production achieved in ideal conditions). The efficiency of a solar installation is often indicated by measuring its total daily production in terms of equivalent peak hours. PG&E forecasts a production of 1.65 billion kilowatt-hours of renewable energy annually, which would be a daily average of 4520 megawatt-hours… as though the plant worked for about 5 hours and half per day at its peak power. Definitely not bad! About 240,000 residential homes can be completely served with that amount of energy, without any emission into the atmosphere.

Nobody’s so naive to believe PG&E has not considered its return on such an investment. But this is probably the best news at all! Making photovoltaic energy remunerative even before it reaches the grid parity, through proper incentives, is essential if we want to start building a cleaner future for our planet.

Raise your hand if you’ve never imagined to ride a US coast-to-coast with one of those cult Volkswagen micro-buses, like in some inspiring movies.

Of course my arms have not remained steady. But today I’d rather be in front of a modern and technological dashboard like the following, with much more comfort and safety.

I could still feel the old-fashioned fashion of a VW micro-bus though… because I would be driving the beautiful silver bullet below!

Powered by a hybrid (bio-diesel + electric) engine and provided with a photovoltaic rooftop, this amazing vehicle should be ready in form of prototype by next summer and available for purchase a short time later. Its creator, Canadian designer Alexandre Verdier, has recently stated: “I wanted to build a car that’s low impact and makes the most out of nature”.

Well done, Alexandre! Once you’ve stopped and turned your Verdier into the mobile house below, you’ll definitely enjoy the environment you’ve contributed to protect.

More details and pictures can be found here, or by googling Verdier.

A fully equipped Verdier will cost the crazy amount of $129,000, but a more affordable $69,000 version should be in the pipeline too. While wondering about a time in which I’ll be able to purchase and intensively use such a vehicle, I can’t wait to spot one of them around!

Yes, the attractiveness of installing a photovoltaic module is strongly influenced by your latitude, because the amount of generated electricity depends on how much light the FV modules will receive from the sky.

Decades of studies have allowed the definition of detailed maps, whose visual result I find as fascinating as interesting. They report the yearly sum of electricity generated by each single KWp (KiloWatt-peak) in every area: an amount that can even double if you move from Central Europe to Southern Italy or Spain.

I’m publishing a map of the whole Europe, but many local maps are available here and some googling will definitely cover any other world area.

Solar irradiation is an essential parameter indeed: on equal terms, it could even halve the break-even period of your investment. But many other parameters are relevant, starting from compelling public incentives. This explains why Germany, even though its territory appears quite sad in the map above, has rapidly become one of the world main hosts and producers of photovoltaic systems.

Ernst & Young has developed a research named Renewable Energy Country Attractiveness Index, whose aim is to give a complete picture of the renewable energy market. Many interesting details, including the ambitious targets set by the world’s main countries, are reported in this excellent article published in 2007. More recent and really complete data can be found in the EPIA (European Photovoltaic Industry Association) latest Solar Generation Report, developed in collaboration with Greenpeace.

Are we really going to build a clean planet for our children? Recent developments, like soaring oil prices and President Obama’s ambitious plans, give us hope.